ABSTRACT
The study aims at evaluating the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding leprosy and its management among patients, their caregivers (relatives), and future healthcare providers (medical interns). Question- naire-based study was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee and participants were recruited after obtaining informed consent. Validated Questionnaire (face-validity and content-validity, content-validity- ratio cut-off 0.75) was used after pilot-testing for reliability (Chronbach's alpha>0.8 accepted). Vernacular- version of the questionnaire was developed by translation and back-translation. The questionnaire administered to clinically-diagnosed cases of leprosy, their caregivers (relatives), and future healthcare providers (medical interns) of BS Medical College Bakura, (a tertiary care rural medical college hospital). The calculated sample size was 88 for patients and their caregivers, considering 95% confidence interval, 10% allowable error and 35.67% response rate. The figures regarding knowledge about leprosy, and its treatment ranged between 71.6% to 26.1% among patients and between 85.2% to 37.5% among their caregivers for different knowledge domains. Lack of proper knowledge was also found in upto 52% of medical interns. Myths prevailed in upto 12.5% of patients, 23.9% caregivers, 6.7% of medical interns. There was attitudinal crisis and stigma in upto 45.5% of patients, 56.8% of caregivers, and 33.3% of medical interns. The stigma resulted in 33.4% of patients losing their job, 25% separated in their own home and 16.7% divorced. Awareness about leprosy is still lacking among patients and their caregivers despite repeated public health campaigns by NLEP. The absence of knowledge regarding leprosy among a few medical interns and even the presence of myths in their minds is an ominous sign. More effective awareness programmes and counseling involving the general population are necessary to eliminate stigma from the society